When we as humans look into the sky, a lot of us first ask ourselves, “Is there anyone out there like us?” Some of us go farther and think, “What would happen if we met?” It is in human nature to wonder what is out there. We as humans are never satisfied with what we have; we always want to go farther and discover more. With the billions and trillions of planets in our galaxy alone, there is bound to be life, possibly be even intelligent life out there waiting for us. I believe that if we search enough, there will definitely be intelligent life out there.

Other astronomers such as Ernst Mayr believe that “High intelligence must be extremely rare, here or anywhere.” They say that “Of the billions of species that have lived and died since life began, only one — Homo sapiens — had developed a science, a technology, and the curiosity to explore the stars. And that took about 3.5 billion years of evolution.” Although this may be true for our planet, we barely have any knowledge of this on other planets. When astronomers look for suitable planets, they look for planets such as ours with the suitable temperature for humans, which may not be true for other species. The margin of planets we over look multiplies with each criterion astronomers put unto their search. Out of the thousands of planets we looked for, plenty had conditions within the margins we created alone. Imagine how much planets can hold life when we look through other criteria “lenses.”

But, if we think it in the point of view from another race, we, with all our technology and resources will most likely be viewed as a sort of livestock to more advanced life, with extraterrestrial life coming here as conquerors attempting to harvest our resources. "Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach," Stephen Hawking said in 2010. If a species has the technology to travel to Earth from farther than any astronomer has seen, they must be centuries past us in terms of technology. This probably means that the species has lived long enough to deplete their planet at least partially of its resources. Even if they have already conquered other planet, one of the main priorities of a species like that is resources.

When people with this knowledge look up into the sky and ask “Is there anyone out there like us?” and “What would happen if we met?”  They know that there can be intelligent life out there, possibly even more advanced than us, and unfortunately, they could also view us as enemies to defeat.